


By Any Other Name

by ama



Category: Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Character of Color, Endearments, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Nicknames, Post-Canon, Public Display of Affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stop calling me kid. We're practically the same age."<br/>"You're not going to like the other names I come up with for you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other Name

Jesper woke first, and immediately began to squirm. Wylan could feel him--stretching his legs, then his arms, rolling this way and that as he tried to find the most comfortable spot in the bed. For one moment he seemed to settle, resting a hand on Wylan’s thigh and his forehead against his back, but in another second he was wiggling again.

“Stop _moving_ ,” Wylan complained, arms squeezing tighter around the pillow in his grasp. Jesper laughed. He adjusted and settled again; this time Wylan could feel the other boy’s chin on his upper back, and the soft brush of lips against his neck.

“Morning, muffin.”

“Morning.” Pause. “What did you just call me?” he demanded, rolling over, and Jesper shook with laughter.

“I know how much you hate it when I call you kid,” he said innocently. “And now that I’ve got you in my lecherous grasp--” his long, troublesome fingers found a ticklish spot, and Wylan yelped “--merchling just doesn’t sound so appealing to me, either. I thought I’d try some other terms of endearment. What do you think?”

“You can’t call me _muffin_ ,” Wylan protested. It was far too early in the morning to be feeling this exasperated. He cuddled closer and rested his cheek against Jesper’s chest. He might be infuriating, but at least he was warm. “It’s ridiculous.”

“How about spot?”

“ _Spot_? Where on earth did you come up with that?” Wordlessly, Jesper pressed his finger to Wylan’s neck, and then again, and again. The blood drained from Wylan’s face. “Oh _no_.”

“Oh yes.”

“Oh _hell_.”

He clapped a hand to his neck and felt faint pinpricks of soreness from all the love bites on his neck and shoulder. There were a lot of them; last night they had spent at least an hour kissing (possibly more, he had been distracted), and every time Wylan had taken a breath, Jesper had gone for the throat. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Language, spotty dearest.”

“That sounds like I’ve got the plague. Everyone’s going to see, you know that, right?”

“Mm, sounds like your problem, not mine. I didn’t exactly spell out my initials; anyone could have put those there,” Jesper grinned.

“No they couldn’t’ve,” Wylan scoffed. He poked Jesper in the chest. “Or else you would be sulking all day. I mean everyone’s going to think we…”

“Ah,” Jesper said knowingly as the words faded away. “Yes, they might think _that_.”

He laced his fingers through Wylan’s and lifted their hands to press a sweet, innocent kiss to his knuckles. They were taking things slow, at Wylan’s behest. He wasn’t _entirely_ new to this sort of thing, having had one whole romantic relationship before leaving his father’s house, but that was nothing like this--it had been with a girl, for one thing, and they had often been chaperoned, and there had been no danger of his heart being lost. Now… he wanted to be cautious. For every fool that got his head broken in the Barrel, at least two more got his heart broken, and as much as he might trust Jesper in his heart, he didn’t want to be a Barrel fool anymore.

When he had pulled away the night before, and guided Jesper’s hand away and asked to delay just a little bit, he had half-expected Jesper to at least pout, if not kick him out of bed or break it off entirely. But the other boy had done none of those things. He had sighed and said “you mean I have to do this _all night_?” in a voice dripping with sarcasm and fixed his lips against Wylan’s shoulder again. And when Wylan had thanked him he had looked up with just this look in his eye--the ever-present dancing light stilled, softer around the edges and heart-stoppingly sincere.

It almost made Wylan reconsider the whole “not going to jump headfirst into a relationship” thing, although the next thing out of Jesper’s mouth kept him on track.

“Don’t worry, fuzzy bun,” Jesper said solemnly. “I won’t let anyone laugh at you.”

\---

Wylan had thought--okay, _hoped_ \--that Jesper’s quest for new terms of endearment was a one-off joke at best, or at least had a brief life. After all, he had settled on “merchling” fairly quickly. He thought that Jesper would try out a handful, pick one that (if he was lucky) wasn’t too embarrassing, and stick with it, but it soon became apparent that he had been overly optimistic. Over the next few days he answered to button, lambkin, ducky, poppet, and snuggles, none of which he was particularly fond of, and most of which Jesper couldn’t say with a straight face. None of them stuck around, and on the fourth day they had gotten so used to this game that Jesper started using nicknames in front of other people, which of course made the whole thing twice as dangerous.

The first time he did it, they were in the middle of a briefing with Kaz and all of his closest generals--meaning, essentially, Nina and Inej, plus Matthias, who usually pretended not to hear a word but didn’t want to leave Nina’s side--discussing what to do about the Dime Lions, and Jesper casually said “Hand me that map, my pearl, won’t you?”

Wylan obliged without thought, and then realized that everyone was staring. A blush stained his cheeks on cue.

“What did he just call you?” Nina asked in an amused voice.

“Pearl,” Kaz said tonelessly. “Fitting.”

“Why--oh, I see what you mean. After the pistols.” She laughed. “Jesper’s two favorite things, Wylan and guns. Perfect.”

“Oh, shut up,” Wylan mumbled. Jesper reached over to ruffle his hair, and he shoved his hand away and turned towards Kaz again, shoulders straight and face earnest as an attentive schoolboy.

After that, Jesper had no qualms about calling Wylan pet names in public. It did seem to be casual sometimes, almost instinctual--“pearl” and “dearest” slipped from his mouth when he wasn’t paying attention, and although Wylan still thought they sounded ridiculous, he had to admit that he liked the little reminders that they were together, and that Jesper didn’t care who knew it. Most of the time no one even seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, when Jesper was boisterous and his endearment of choice was something like “honey bunny,” _that_ tended to garner attention. Sometimes Wylan was embarrassed--like when he handed Jesper a bowl of biscuits at dinner and the other boy casually said “thank you, lover,” which made Wylan spill half a glass of beer onto his plate of food. Half the room roared with laughter; even Inej had trouble hiding her smile, and she was the one who laughed at him the least.

Once Jesper had made the mistake of calling Wylan “snookums” in a crowded room of Dregs. He had grinned, unrepentant, when Wylan had glared at him, and then immediately lost his sense of humor when one of the other gang members tried to call Wylan the same thing in jest. Five minutes later he had threatened to shoot eighteen people, “snookums” was immediately retired, and Wylan graciously forgave him.

Most of the time, though, he didn’t feel at all like he was the butt of the joke. Jesper would croon “pet” or “my dove” or the term of the moment at him, and Wylan would roll his eyes or complain if it was really bad enough, and everyone would just shake their heads at Jesper being Jesper.

He never seemed to run out of names, either. Most of them were Kerch, but Wylan suspected that he sometimes went to Nina for others--he definitely recognized a few Frejdan words tripping off Jesper’s tongue a handful of times, as mangled as they were. Sometimes, too, there were themes. One day Jesper was awake early--that didn’t happen often. They were both late sleepers, although when Jesper _was_ awake, he was up and moving, and Wylan typically needed more time to return to the land of the living. That morning he was being too slow.

“Come on, Wylan,” Jesper whined. “I want to get breakfast. There’s that shop down the road that does the best apple syrup in the city, and if you get there before the rush, they’ll do apple fritters as well. Come on, honey cake, up and at ’em.”

He patted Wylan firmly on the rump. Wylan rolled over and said, deadpan, “I hate honey cake.” Then he pulled the covers back over his head and tried to go back to sleep.

“Plum tart?” Jesper suggested. “You like plum tart. Oh, let’s _go_ , pudding, we don’t have time to fight over it.”

All of the different names that day were related to food. Little waffle, peach, sugar lips (Wylan had actually shoved him out of a chair for that one), cream puff, cherry cheeks (...fair), brussel sprout. Wylan was unusually hungry, and craving sweets, all day. Another day Jesper tried to go through animal names, but he was convinced to abandon the endeavor after Matthias and Nina rejected almost every animal he came up with as either having very little to do with Wylan appearance- or temperament-wise, or not sounding appropriate as a nickname.

Two weeks passed and Wylan found that he was responding to almost anything that came out of Jesper’s mouth. It was amusing, exasperating, not worth paying attention to, routine--but it wasn’t until the fifteenth day of this little game that he actually began to see the appeal.

It was a rainy day and they were curled up in Jesper’s bed, trading kisses and bold touches. Jesper’s fingers flitted under Wylan’s shirt, up over his bare skin and then down to rest high on his thigh, and Wylan rested his head against the other boy’s shoulder and took a shaky breath.

“You first.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, pushing at Jesper’s shirt and staring at the beautiful expanse of skin it revealed. “I want to be paying attention for this.”

Jesper gave a warm, throaty laugh and looked at him with a challenge dancing in his eyes. He leaned back against the headboard and spread his arms.

“Then I’m yours. Do what you will.”

Afterwards, still catching his breath, he had wrapped his left arm around Wylan, holding him close, and slipped the other hand beneath his trousers. His lips brushed against Wylan’s ear the whole time, whispering sweet nothings--nothing of note first, but then--

“That’s it, darling, come on… Saints, you’re lovely--”

Wylan came with a little choked gasp, and they sat together for a few moments, picking themselves back up.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Wylan said after a moment, and Jesper made an insulted noise in the back of his throat.

“Not so--”

“I meant _darling_ ," Wylan laughed, cheeks still hot from the earlier attentions. “That one’s... not so bad.”

“Really? Hm.” Jesper paused, thoughtful, and then began to play with Wylan’s hair. “It's too common, though. If I use it every day I'll sound just like those girls marching through shops full of 'absolutely _darling_ dresses.' I'll save it for very special occasions.”

The low rumble of his voice was like a physical touch--like a calloused hand running lightly over his side. Wylan shivered and drew closer.

\---

A few days later, Jesper left for a mysterious job with Kaz and Inej. They were gone for almost a week, and Wylan missed them like crazy--well, missed one in particular. He tried to keep himself busy, fiddling away in his workshop and expanding his contacts in the Barrel, but he couldn't help the way his heart leapt when he entered the Slat that night and saw Jesper at the bar. He recognized the look on the other boy's face immediately--Jesper was tipsy, flush, and high off a fight. Wylan pushed through the crowd towards the bar with a grin on his face.

“You're _back_!”

“ _There_ you are!” Jesper said in a loud voice, as if Wylan had been the one absent for a week. Then, suddenly, his arm looped around Wylan's waist and tugged. The smaller boy lost his footing and ended up half on Jesper's lap. He could feel his traitorous cheeks turning pink, again, but he ignored them and settled more stably on Jesper's knobby knees. Jesper nuzzled against Wylan's neck and breathed in deep. “I missed you, sweet,” he mumbled, and Wylan's heart skipped a beat.

“I missed you, too.”

“Did you?” Jesper sounded pleased. He lifted his face, and raised one hand to grab the bartender's attention, the other firmly holding Wylan in place. “Hey, Podge, get me another one of these for me, and another for my beauty here.”

“You're in fine form tonight,” Wylan snickered, feeling giddy and half drunk already.

“Are you complaining?”

It had been a chilly, boring day, despite his attempts to amuse himself, and the air in the room was hot and sparking with energy. Jesper was back--he was looking at Wylan like he was a straight flush--the golden light was doing beautiful things to his dark skin and his syrup-sweet eyes--and everyone with half a brain could look at him or listen to him talk and know that Wylan was _his_. Wylan smiled and leaned in for a kiss.

“No, definitely not.”

\---

The next night saw Wylan in Jesper's bed again, eyes bright, face flushed, fingers twisted so tight in the sheets that he feared they might tear. Jesper's hand cradled his head as his eyes flickered over Wylan's face.

“All right?”

“Yeah,” Wylan breathed. “I'm fine. You can--move. Just slow.”

“I'm going to take a minute,” Jesper said, which was almost funny because he was so rarely still. He braced himself on his elbows and stared down at Wylan, fondness and wonder written all over his face. “I’ve told you before that you’re gorgeous, haven’t I?”

“Stop,” Wylan whined, letting his head flip sideways because he couldn't keep from grinning like a fool.

“No,” Jesper replied in the same tone. He brushed a curl off Wylan's forehead and kissed his cheek. “Wylan, look at me. I love you.”

Wylan turned his head back.

“What did you say?”

“I love you,” Jesper repeated. For a moment their eyes were locked and the room was silent. Wylan reached up and splayed his fingers over Jesper's cheek.

“I meant,” he said quietly, “what did you call me?”

For a moment Jesper stared down at him, uncomprehending, and then he burst out laughing. His arms gave out and Wylan let out a puff of air as all of Jesper's weight landed on his chest.

“Saints, you're heavier than you look.”

 _“Wylan_ ,” Jesper gasped. He swallowed, trying to get his breath back. “My love. Aren't you--”

“Ooh,” Wylan interrupted as his stomach did backflips. “That one. I like that one a lot.”

Jesper rolled his eyes and touched a tender kiss to Wylan's lips.

“Wylan, my love,” he began again. “You are without a doubt the cruelest person I have ever been in love with--and remember I was mad about Kaz Brekker for a good long while.”

“Do you really want me to be remembering that right now?” Wylan asked, eyebrows raised. There was a pause.

“No. No, I don't. Let me make my penance.”

He tilted his head up and kissed Wylan, long and slow and patient. Wylan sighed and let his hands slowly trace the muscles of Jesper's back.

“I love you,” he whispered when the kiss ended. Jesper pushed himself up on his elbows again and smiled, a real smile that made Wylan’s toes wiggle and warmth creep down his spine. The other boy leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“Thank you, snuggle muffin.”


End file.
